Journal of Geography ISSN: 0022-1341 (Print) 1752-6868 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjog20 The Great Valley-A Function of Limestone J. Russell Smith To cite this article: J. Russell Smith (1921) The Great Valley-A Function of Limestone, Journal of Geography, 20:6, 234-238, DOI: 10.1080/00221342108985017 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221342108985017 Published online: 28 Feb 2008. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 3 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjog20 Download by: [University of California, San Diego] Date: 28 June 2016, At: 16:55 234 THE JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY VOL. 20 The work performed by the National Council of Geography Teachers and their stimulating organ, the Journal of Geography, should not be discounted but a journal will not suffice. Action on t,he part of the geographers in the form of tentative syllabi is impera- tive and this action must not be long postponed. Let alternative schemes be suggested as a further basis for experimentation, but the day of wishy-washy compromise schemes has passed. Uncer- tainty on the part of the specialist breeds uncertainty on the part of others, and certainty can come only from more careful experimen- tation. THE GREAT VALLEY-A FUNCTION OF LIMESTQNE J. RUSSELLSMITH Columbia University, New York City MOUNTAINS,VALLEYS AND BEAUTIFULLANDSCAPES If you should climb to the top of the forested Blue Ridge Mount- ains, you would be standing at the northwestern edge of the Piedmont. Look westward, and you will see a fertile land lying several hundred feet below. If it is spring or early summer you will see fields of the rich brown color of fresh, plowed earth, and fields showing the varying colors of wheat, corn, clover, pasture, and dark green patches of woodland. You will discover bits of road, farmhouses, big farms and sometimes a bit of river shining in the sunlight. On a clear day you can see the dark blue of another ridge twenty or thirty rniles west of where you are. This lowland which lies between these two ridges is the Great Appalachian Valley, and the distant ridge is its northwestern edge. Beyond that is a little narrow valley, then another ridge, and another, and another, and another, until finally, after thirty or forty miles of narrow ridges and the valleys between them you come to a ridge that has but one side. Reaching its top you do not see another valley but instead the level land of the Appalachian Plateau stretching Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:55 28 June 2016 away towards the west. The Appalachians comprise these two parts, the ridges and valleys on the east, and the plateau on the west stretch- ing from New York to Lllabarna. It is the purpose of this article to discuss some of the aspects of the Appalachian valleys. A GREATVALLEY HIGHWAY In this region is one of the longest mountain valleys to be found anywhere in the world. It is called the Great Appalachian Valley. SEPT.,1921 THE GREAT VALLEY 235 The Great Valley is so much more level than the Piedmont that it is a king of natural highways. From the Cotton Belt in Alabama to the Hudson Valley in New York it furnishes a continuous open road thru the eastern highlands. One may travel over its entire length from the Hudson Valley to the Cotton Belt without crossing a single mountain ridge, but all the way one will see mountains to the east or west running parallel to the Great Valley, but never crossing it. Two branches of the Ohio River drain parts of this valley and five Atlantic rivers drain a part of it and then break thru its eastern wall. The Great Valley has long been a route of travel. Even in the days before the Revolutionary War its open road tempted the English Quakers and the German colonists of Eastern Pennsylvania to travel south in search of new lands to settle. Some of them settled in the Maryland part of the Great Valley, others went on thru the West Virginia part and into Virginia, and as far south as the headwaters of the James. Later this route helped other settlers on their way to the valley of the Ohio. Sore left the Great Valley near Shippensburg in southern Pennsylvania and went over the niountaiiis to Pittsburgh. There flatboats drifting down the Ohio river took settlers to points in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Other settlers from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, bound for Kentucky, drove on down the Great Valley to the headwaters of the Tennessee. Here there is a notch, or gap, in the Cumherland Mountains which form the western wall of the valley. Cumberland Gap is close to the place where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky join. It makes an open road in the mountain wall thru which the wagons of the early emigrants toiled into the forested coun- try of Kentucky. For many years after the Revolutionary War one family every hour, on the average, drove thru this gap seeking a new home to the westward. During the Civil War the valley was the roadway by which the Southern armies went north and the Northern armies went south. The battles of Antietam and Gettysburg illustrate Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:55 28 June 2016 this fact. LIMESTONEAND ROADS The Great Appalachian Valley became the great highway for two reasons. First, it is nearly level, and therefore it is much easier to travel there than on the Piedmont, where there are hills, or in the Coast Plain, where there are many deep rivers to cross. The second reason is that limestone is plentiful there. No other stone makes good roads so easily. Because it has limestone the Great Valley has many more niilcs of good stone roads than has the Picdmoiit re&'.ion across the ridge to the eastn.ard. On the main valley pike one may, in plea- sant seasons of the year, meet autoinohilist.: from many states. They come lo tour over the wonderful roads of this beautiful section. TA~~~~~~)~~.4ND V.41,1JEP hlAKIS(> This entire region was once a high plateau. I3cca,usc linicstoiie dissolves in watei- niore easily t,lian any other stone, the limt:st,one region has been more quickly worn down and therefore has a lower surface than' that of t,hc hard sandstone. In t,liis way the limeshone strips licca,me valley and t,hc sandstone st,rips reriiained ridges. I,IMWI~ONEASI) XGRICT:LT~;RE Thc lirnestoiie rock of which the \.alley floor is made breaks up into a iwy fert.ile clay soil, which is good for wheat,, corn, anti hay. There- fore most of the people of this region make their living by farming. The rich valley fields are co~~credwit.h grain 01' dotted with grazing xninials. Each year fa.t.ca,tt,le and great quantities of wheat :tre shipped to the cit.ies of the r1ort.h and east. T,IMICSTONE ASI) hos I,iiiiest.one has done inore to mtkc this valley useful to iiian t.tian just to give fei.t.ilesoil and good roads. Tt. has helped to make deposits of iron ore. It happens that little streams of wat,er sometiines carry tiny qusnt,ities of iron in solut,ion, just as a cup of coffee niay hold sugar in solution. If iva.ter carrying particles of iron flows over liinc- st,one, the water get,s 3 little of the liinestone in solut.ion. St.range to say, this makes tJhe water drop the iron. Wherever this occurs beds of iron ore arc Fornicd beside the liniest,one. Sometime at't.er years aiicl years have passed these iron ore beds may become many feet thick. Since there is liniestorie from end to end of t,he Great Valley, t,liere are a.lm iron ore deposits t,hruout. its length. I ].on finnaccs aiv at. I3etdile- hein arid Ixbaiion in I'erinsylvariia, Roanoke in Virginia, T3irmingham Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 16:55 28 June 2016 in A\labam:~,and at. other places. T,TMESTOSE AND ChrmT I,iiiiestone is a raw material used for anot.her iiidust,ry ccnieiit, niaking. Cement. is limestone ailti slate or linicstone shale :tiid rock cracked into chunks, burned in a furnace arid then ground t.o pon.der. In many places in t.he valley or along its sides, slate quarries a.ritl lime- stone quarries can be found near together. Hecsuse of this proximity there are cement, plants at sel-era,l points along t.he valley. The gmtt- SEPT.,1921 THE GREAT VALLEY 237 est cement center is in the Lehigh Valley, near Allentown and Bethle- hem. In that locality the industry is especially flourishing because the great port cities of Philadelphia and New York are only about a hundred miles away. Those cities use much cement and also they ship quantities of it over sea. RIVERS Before there were railroads rivers were most useful to farmers. They were the highways along which wheat went down to tide water in flat boats. This was such hard work that it is no longer done. The only navigable river of the Great Valley is the Tennessee, up which boats travel as far as Knoxville. The different parts of the Great Valley have been named after the rivers that drain them.